I'm Christiaan and like Becky forgot to post an introduction over the weekend. So here goes.
I'm a 2nd year Bachelor of Arts student, majoring in Politics, Philosophy and English.
I was quite excited when I saw the title for this unit "Self.net etc" as it sounded much more interesting than all the other units on offer that would contribute to my English major. Reasons I was interested in the course were my understanding of myself as a cyborg (in many senses of the word) and general appreciation of science fiction. Basically I've read bits and pieces around the idea of cyborgs and digital identity in new scientist and in various parts of the 'interwebs', and found it interesting (you could however just say that I'm a sci-fi geek). Its pretty damn cool to be able to get credit points to read, listen and talk about stuff that interests me greatly outside of my studies.
Now for my link (and not the blonde green-tunic wearing, Master-sword wielding elf kind).
Video game puns aside, initially I had little idea of what I wanted to link. However as I wrote this I came up with 3 equally good ideas so I've just decided to link them all.
Firstly I talked about the concept of the singularity in one of our tutes, and while I haven't been able to actually get my hands on the specific book, the wikipedia page on it explains most of what Mr Kurzweil argues. Also, wikipedia is pretty relevant to the sorts of issues we are covering anyway.
Secondly, Ghost in the Shell is an awesome anime, and deals with all kinds of issues similar to the ones we are discussing. The main female character is in fact a strong AI (one that would pass the Turing Test). There is a good reference in this scene (from the second movie), I believe the scientist refers to herself as Haraway. Watch from about 2.41 inwards - you'll pick up the reference easy.
And lastly. In order to live out the sci-fi geekness I alluded to earlier I will be linking a MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game), but definitely not as bland as World of Warcraft. This game is called EVE and is based around pilots being hard-wired into computers and thereby flying spaceships. So in both the subject matter and what it is as a site of social interaction it has bearing on the course.
Anyway, that's my slightly geeky rant. See you in tutorials.
Chris G
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